Carson preschool sex case: Father files lawsuit; details revealed

Richard McCarthy became the first parent to publicly allege oral sex between preschoolers at First Lutheran Church of Carson School.

On Tuesday, he also became the first of six different families to file a lawsuit against the school over allegations that their children participated in oral sex on the campus. All the families are filing individual lawsuits with the same attorney, Greg Owen.

"We have a system of things occurring, sexual acts occurring, and the school covering it up," Owen said.

In the suit, Owen alleges that a 5-year-old female student drew all over McCarthy's son's body with a marker during naptime in September.

"When I took his pants off to put him in the shower, he's got magic marker all over his privates and all over his butt," McCarthy said.

State regulators cited the school for that incident and for sexual contact between students.

In October, a teacher allegedly caught McCarthy's son in the bathroom receiving oral sex from the same 5-year-old girl who drew on him.

In his lawsuit, Owen said McCarthy talked to another parent who said oral sex at school had happened before.

"When he opened up to her, her jaw dropped and she opened up for the first time and said 'It also happened to my child,'" Owen said.

The lawsuit claims that incident involving the woman's son was in September and never reported to authorities.

"Had we been informed about the first incident, parents would have gotten proactive," McCarthy said.

School officials said they reported every incident to authorities and parents.

In a statement, the pastor said, "The incident Mr. McCarthy has raised, though unfortunate, happened last October and was addressed and dealt with at that time. Mr. McCarthy chose to keep his son enrolled in the school until a week ago. We do not know why Mr. McCarthy has waited until now to take the allegations to the media."

The school itself is set to close on Friday because the director is leaving for personal reasons and no teacher wants the job. They insist student sex has nothing to do with the closure.